


At Least Out Loud (I Won't Say I'm In)

by locketofyourhair



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Typical Violence, Emotional Constipation, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Saiyuki Bang, background Hakkai/Gojyo, canon typical angst, fictional illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 18:59:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11973648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/locketofyourhair/pseuds/locketofyourhair
Summary: Hanahaki is supposed to affect those in unrequited love. Fine. Only one problem: Sanzo isn't in love with anyone.





	At Least Out Loud (I Won't Say I'm In)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Saiyuki Bang and largely inspired by my stumbling on Hanahaki disease while out in the wilds of fandoms I don't really follow.
> 
> Thank you so much to the lovely [Ezrablue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EzraTheBlue/pseuds/EzraTheBlue) for her beta work on this piece. All remaining mistakes are on me.
> 
> The artwork is the work of the extremely talented [Franky Fish](http://frankenfishen.tumblr.com/) and it is so incredible. More fantastic artwork can be found at their [artblog](https://frankenarts.tumblr.com/) for a variety of fandoms.
> 
> Title credit to the song by nearly the same name from Disney's _Hercules_. I'm sure they're very proud.

* * *

Sanzo wakes up with mangled dandelions on his pillow, but they slept in a meadow last night. It's not surprising. There are wildflowers everywhere and their tents are too torn to risk on a calm night. Perhaps it was Goku who put them there, though he's long since outgrown trying to impress Sanzo with such childish displays. 

He rummages for his cigarettes as he listens to Hakkai prepare breakfast, the well-meaning grousing of Gojyo as he helps stoke the fire. Goku is still sleeping, stretched out in his bedroll. His shirt rides up to show a sliver of tan skin. 

Sanzo feels a tickle in the back of his throat and suddenly finds himself coughing. He spits up leaves and snarls at the meadow.

***

The coughing is nothing new. He's turned into a two-pack-a-day smoker on the best days, when his headaches are at a minimum and no morons try to waylay them for too long. If random youkai don't decide to suicide by Sanzo and the two idiots in the back don't make too much noise, he can maybe keep it under one and a half, but his luck is never that good.

So he coughs, and glares at Hakkai when he so much as raises an eyebrow. Of course he'd make silent looks about Sanzo smoking but Gojyo could smoke as merrily without so much as a comment.

(Sanzo could admit that he was being petty. Hakkai saved the most withering looks for Gojyo’s smoking.)

What is new is the way his throat sticks, the burning. He can't breathe in odd moments, and Goku comes close and places his hands on Sanzo’s shoulders, all well-meaning concern. He panics when Sanzo coughs harder, when he can taste the bitterness of pollen on the back of his tongue. 

He ignores the bits of leaves and petals that fall into his hands. 

Sometimes they'll be driving, and suddenly he won't be able to breathe, a pressure inside his chest that makes him grip the dash hard enough that Hakuryuu squeaks. 

He ignores it all, because it's ridiculous. People don't cough off flowers; he'll get over this and they'll start using the tents again. He can rub pollen onto a handkerchief, and no one notices him brush the petals away. 

Nothing else changes. He still breaks up arguments between the two idiots and glares at Hakkai’s bland smiles. They press further into India. It begins to feel less insurmountable, that they might survive this... 

Except the coughing doesn't get better.

***

They're in a hotel when he coughs up an entire dandelion blossom tinged with blood. He stares at the bits of gore in his hand, at the tiny bits of leaves. He could taste the pollen and the blood on the back of the his tongue.

He may have let it go, push it aside, and hope that this would pass.

Except right then, as he puts the bloody weed down onto the table, Hakkai comes in from the baths. He shares with Sanzo almost exclusively now when they have hotels. 

Which is good, because by the look of horror on Hakkai’s face when he sees the mangled dandelion tells him two things: he's actually sick and Hakkai should know how to fix it. He might not be able to heal illnesses, but he knows enough to direct Sanzo to the right medicine. 

“What is it?” Sanzo lights another cigarette and crumples the dandelion up in a napkin. 

Hakkai sits down across from him, and he almost looks disturbed beneath the calm smile. “I didn't realize it had gotten that bad,” he says carefully. 

“You knew I was sick?” Sanzo sneers, his fingers itching for the fan. He'd thought that he'd managed to keep them all in the dark. That Hakkai knew and didn't say anything is irritating and out of character. 

Hakkai shakes his head, spreading his hands wide. “No, no. I had thought you were simply allergic to something in the area, and the smoking wasn't helping. If I had any idea it was this, I would have--”

“If it was what?” 

Hakkai frowns, cocking his head to the side. “Sanzo, you have Hanahaki. If you've coughed up blood, it's fairly advanced. You'll have to tell--”

Sanzo narrowed his eyes. He'd heard, long ago, stories about the wasting sickness, with flowers taking root in some lovelorn sap’s lungs. The afflicted suffered terribly, as everyone does in those sort of ridiculous stories, rather than tell the object of their unrequited love that they were “desperately” in love with them. Usually, the afflicted went to the grave rather than admit something to their love, and in the stories, their love confessed to loving them in front of their pyre. 

“I'm not in love,” Sanzo says and takes his tea cup with his free hand. “It’s got to be some sort of curse.”

Hakkai’s eyes widen behind his glasses. “Sanzo, if you have Hanahaki, you have to be,” he says as if he's speaking to a small child, explaining a very simple truth. “It can be fatal if you don’t say anything.”

Sanzo glares. “I'm not in love. This is something else,” he says in a tone meant to end the conversation. Hakkai can have his stupid romantic notions. Sanzo will find out what this is on his own then.

***

The coughing gets worse, because of course it does. Now the two idiots are aware and shooting him concerned looks, even if they aren't aware yet of the flowers. Hakkai says nothing more, his knuckles white on the steering wheel each time Sanzo coughs. There’s more and more full flowers now, more blood, and his lungs feel heavy.

He fights, and the fights go worse. Goku comes to stand back-to-back with him, and the coughing gets so bad that Sanzo has to quit the fight. Goku goes from fighting with him to fighting to keep Sanzo safe. 

Hakkai glares at the end of fights, and Goku demands that Sanzo is healed first, always. 

“This is only a stop-gap,” Hakkai says, because every fight tears a lesion in his lungs. 

“I'm not in love,” Sanzo insists again and again. 

Hakkai helps bury the flowers, and his face says _If not, what is this?_

***

When they stop at a town, he takes Goku to a small clinic. Gojyo wants to go to the bar, probably to hit on women like none of them can see how he looks at Hakkai. Sanzo knows that taking Hakkai would make more sense, but he cannot stand the quiet and disapproving looks.

(If he’s being honest, he means to go alone, but Goku falls into step beside him without asking. And part of him understands that Goku has grown stubborn enough, and into himself enough that it doesn't matter what Sanzo says. Goku is going with him.)

It's a five minute walk from the hotel to the clinic and Goku is quiet beside him, face as serious as he's ever seen it. Sanzo coughs again, hard, and he has to stop and spit blood and petals into the dusty road. He scrapes a boot over it, curling his lip at the disgustingness of it.

“How bad is it?” Goku asks, his voice light and careful. “I mean if you're going to a doctor and not Hakkai, it has to be bad.”

Sanzo glances at Goku from the corner of his eye. There's a grim set to his mouth, like he's trying hard to seem like he's not scared, trying so hard to look brave and resolute. 

He sighs and touches Goku’s hair. “I'm going to be fine,” he says calmly, ignoring the tickling in his throat. 

Goku’s gold eyes look huge in his face, and he knows that Goku doesn't believe him. The times when he believes almost everything Sanzo says are long gone.

“There's...” Goku reaches up to touch the side of Sanzo’s mouth, his fingers tentative. 

The coughing starts again, harsher and more painful than it ever has been before. Sanzo doubles over, and Goku keeps him upright, holding his shoulder. Sanzo can feel the anxiety running through the monkey. There is nothing Sanzo can do to make Goku feel better. 

“Sanzo,” Goku whispers and he knows that the monkey sees the sloppy pile of blossoms and petals, stems and leaves. 

He shakes his head. “The clinic will know what to do.”

“Okay,” Goku murmurs and picks up a handful of flowers. “We should probably show them to the doctors.”

Except the doctors at the clinic look at the pile of bloody flowers, from Sanzo to Goku, and they shake their heads. “I have no idea how to help you,” one says, though she gives Sanzo a tonic for his throat. 

“You shouldn't still be ill,” the other murmurs. He claps Goku on the shoulder, as if Goku is the one with blood staining his lips. 

Goku’s hand curls around the loose sleeve of Sanzo’s robe. “But he's getting worse.” He sounds young, scared, and Sanzo stamps down the impulse to touch him. Sanzo is probably dying. Of course he's scared. 

He doesn't like the way the two doctors look at each other, talking with a quirk of eyebrows and a nose wrinkle. “Hanahaki always clears up, but I suppose if the object of your love--”

“I'm not in love,” he snaps. He's had this conversation with Hakkai. He will not have it with two quacks. 

The female doctor sighs and shakes her head. “You have to be. For the disease to be this advanced...” She glances at her partner. “I believe the flowers are taking root in your lungs, Sanzo-sama. This will kill you.”

Goku trembles and his hand finds Sanzo’s wrist. His grip is tight, telegraphing his intent and his fear without so much as a word. “You hafta help him. He can't just die like this!”

“Hypothetically, there is a theory that the flowers could be excised from the lungs, but any attempt has ended in the death of the patient,” the male doctor says calmly. “The blood loss is too rapid, and the roots sometimes wrap around the heart.”

Sanzo frowns because Hakkai never mentioned such a thing. True, a small clinic probably couldn't save a guy that splayed open. If someone else had the blade, though, he was pretty sure Hakkai could heal him fast enough to keep Sanzo from bleeding to death, but he couldn't trust Goku or Gojyo with a blade that close to his heart. With his luck, someone would slip and cut his heart in half. Hakkai could heal a lot, but that seemed even beyond him. 

Goku’s hand feels like it's about to snap Sanzo’s wrist. “No,” he whispers, and there's a desperate thread to Goku’s voice that makes Sanzo want to squirm and look away. He does neither. 

Sanzo pays the doctors and lights a cigarette before he even leaves the clinic, ignoring the looks between the doctors. “Come on,” he snaps at Goku, because he can't sit here and hear more about how he's going to die. 

Goku doesn't let go of him as they walk back to the hotel. He won't meet Sanzo’s eyes and Sanzo doesn't know what to say to him. 

“I'm not going to die,” Sanzo says finally, flicking his cigarette away half-smoked. His throat is still too sore, and he can taste the pollen and blood over the cigarette. “Hakkai and I will figure this out.”

Goku nods. “Is it possible that you're...in love?” His voice drops down to a whisper, wincing away as if he's already anticipating the sting of Sanzo’s fan. 

He scowls. “It seems unlikely.” He doesn't expand on it, because if he were in love, there are only two options, and Hakkai and Gojyo are such a mess that the idea he could love either of them, love them enough for his lungs to fill with flowers, is frankly ridiculous. 

Goku nods, and Sanzo taps out another cigarette, then hands Goku his gold card. “Go get some dinner. I'll be in soon.”

He could already feel the cough coming, and he doesn’t want to cough in front of Goku again. The monkey is already so upset, scared that this is going to kill him. Food will make him feel better. 

Goku takes the card, but he doesn't move for a moment. “Do you want tea for your throat?”

Sanzo stifles a cough, and he knows this next fit will be a bad one. “Yeah,” he croaks, taking out the cough tonic as if he means to take it right now. 

Goku is barely into the hotel when Sanzo starts coughing again.

***

When Hakkai finds him after sundown, his lungs ache. He feels like he's drowning. “I told Goku not to check on you, so we probably have fifteen minutes. Gojyo is plying him with food, but you’ve been out here far too long.”

Sanzo shudders, not just from pain but from thinking about Goku seeing him like this. He knows that there is blood on his robes and mouth, a mess of bloody flowers at his feet. “He can’t do anything for it.”

Hakkai sighs and Sanzo feel the press of his chi against his back, healing what he can. “I suspect there is a lot that Goku could do for you, if you would let him,” he says mildly, and while there is no real reproach in his tone, Sanzo hears it all the way. 

He bares his teeth at Hakkai, too tired to manage much of a snarl. “See if I help you if you start hacking up weeds.”

Hakkai is quiet, and the warm feel of his healing fades. “It is probably worse that you smoke. It aggravates your lungs, and the flowers aren’t getting better, Sanzo. Eventually, I won’t be able to heal the damage, and at this rate, you’ll die before we reach our destination.”

Sanzo scoffs. “What would you know?”

The laugh Hakkai gives is harsh, almost angry. “Your disease may be progressing faster because you refuse to admit that you are in love, Sanzo.” He pulls a red blossom from his pocket and lets it fall to the ground. “And because you refuse to stop smoking.”

He glares at Hakkai’s flower, because any idiot would be able to look at that red flower and see that it’s shaded like blood, like Gojyo’s hair. “And you won’t tell him why?”

“Do you plan on surviving this, Sanzo?” Hakkai asks as he stands, dusting himself off. “Because I don’t think I shall, and if I have to spend my last months coughing up a few flowers but keeping Gojyo in my life, it’s a sacrifice that I would make a dozen times in a dozen lives.”

Sanzo glares at the flowers even harder. “I’m not in love,” he says again, and even to him it sounds mulish. “I can’t be, because any idiot can see that you’re stupid for the kappa, and you have terrible taste.”

Hakkai sighs loudly and wraps his knuckles against the banister. “Perhaps Gojyo and I aren’t the answer, Sanzo.”

Sanzo rolls his eyes. “Then there isn’t one.”

“You’re being deliberately obtuse,” Hakkai says with that infuriatingly blank smile. He goes back into the inn, and Sanzo wishes he could risk shooting their healer. 

Because if it’s not a curse and it’s not Hakkai or Gojyo, Sanzo doesn’t want to think about this could be, because he refuses to believe that it’s Goku.

***

Now that he’s looking for it, Sanzo starts to see the coughing from Hakkai more. It’s nowhere near as bad his own, but it’s there. They’ll be driving along, and Hakuryuu will slow as Hakkai coughs a few times into his hand. Occasionally, he’ll be laughing at a joke, and his polite smile will fade as he turns his head.

It’s worse when Gojyo touches Hakkai, and now that Sanzo is looking for it, he sees the way Hakkai ducks out from under Gojyo’s arm when they stop in town. Hakkai is careful to hand things to Gojyo in a way that makes sure their fingers don’t brush. 

Gojyo’s face says that Gojyo sees it too, in the way he accepts all rejection eventually. There’s a flash of something over his face that Hakkai misses and Sanzo sees, but it’s not Sanzo’s problem to get involved with those two idiots. If Hakkai really thinks he’s in the middle of some grand, heart-rending romance meant to end in tragedy, well, that’s his choice. As long as he stays alive long enough to get Sanzo through this.

***

In three towns, he finds another reference to cutting the disease out, and he takes it to Hakkai. He’s tired of his mouth tasting like bitter pollen and blood. There are smears of yellow on his robes, as if the dandelions are starting to come through his skin.

The scroll makes it sound easy: you find where the flowers started to take root and then you cut. It’ll be bloody and terrible, but he’ll be strong enough to finish this mission. He won’t need Hakkai to heal him when the coughing gets too bad.

He won’t have Goku hovering, just out of the corner of his eye. 

Except when he hands the scroll to Hakkai, at their table in the hotel room, he just sets it aside. “That won’t work, Sanzo,” he says, barely glancing at the words or illustrations. 

Normally, Sanzo can hold his temper with Hakkai, can keep himself (usually) from smacking the idiocy out of him with the fan. Now, though, he hauls Hakkai up from his chair and tosses him towards the wall. Hakkai isn’t as fast as he could be, and he hits hard. Sanzo is perversely pleased to see a red petal to fall from his lips. 

“This is the only way it can work, asshole.” He picks up the scroll again, because it really is their only hope. “I’m going to die otherwise.”

“If I were to cut you open, you would die,” Hakkai says simply, his eyes flashing with anger before he falls back to his usual placid face. “I’m not a doctor, and the roots are tangled in your lungs, Sanzo. I’d have to cut into them. I can’t do all that _and_ keep healing you. I would just end up killing you faster than you’re already dying.”

Sanzo stepped into Hakkai. “You have to do it. It’s the only way to save me,” he growled, fist balling into Hakkai’s shirt. The alternative was impossible. 

“Sanzo, I can’t do this for y--”

The door flew open then, cutting off Hakkai’s words as Goku and Gojyo tumbled in with fragrant shopping bags and Hakuryuu flying behind them. Sanzo was suddenly very aware of how close that he was standing next to Hakkai, how close their faces where. He could feel Hakkai’s breath against his face. 

“Ooooh-kay, monkey,” Gojyo drawls. He throws an arm around Goku’s shoulder, because it’s not enough that Goku is just staring at him and Hakkai. Of course Gojyo jumps right to lechery. “We’re gonna give these two a moment to figure out what they want to--”

Sanzo is sometimes impressed with how fast he can move, even with weeds growing in his lungs. This is one of those moments, his fan out and smacking the shit out of Gojyo before he realizes that he’s let go of Hakkai.

It takes a minute to realize that Goku’s gone, but as soon as he does, the coughing returns.

***

Goku stays away from him, and Sanzo feels like his chest is pressed between boulders. It doesn’t help the pit growing in his stomach. 

Because now that he’s aware of it, his gaze always cut to Goku at the end of a battle, even though they all know that Goku is the most likely to survive. He knows that he’d feel it if Goku lost his limiter when they’re so close that Sanzo could reach out and touch the fraying sleeve of Goku’s t-shirt. 

He’s aware that in the quiet moments of camp, when Goku’s fallen asleep by the fire, his hands itch to reach out and smooth his hair back. He used to be able to pretend that it was the pull of a mentor, that he just wanted to look after Goku as his master did for him. Except in the quiet, dark night, he wants to push Goku’s hair back and press a soft kiss to his forehead, to the swell of his cheek. 

To his mouth. 

Sanzo tries to force away the thoughts about kissing Goku, to force them from his mind with meditation or cheap booze, but they’re always there, brushing on the inside of his skin. He wants to touch Goku and taste his mouth, and he wants more, to put names to the sensations burning inside him. 

He’s always taken care of himself, ever since he was old enough to have such urges, and the thought of touching another human being--male or female--repulsed him for so long. He could never be like Gojyo, taking home a new floozy every night, but maybe he could allow himself to see what the fuss was about. 

Except when his mind begins to wander to what Goku looks like under his clothes, the coughing comes, harsher and more violent each time. 

He supposes, in its way, the disease is trying to tell him exactly what he doesn’t want to know. 

This would all be acceptable, if Goku still didn’t see him as a mentor. They aren’t like Gojyo and Hakkai, where Hakkai is too caught up in feeling like he’s not worthy of any love. He’s so sure that his past sins are keeping him from happiness that he misses the way Gojyo looks at him. 

Sanzo tries to sink deeper into his meditations, to analyze this growing knowledge of Goku, and be keeps coming back to the open faced joy he shared when Sanzo freed him. 

He was a child then, and Sanzo had been his mentor, his teacher, his father. 

Sanzo tips his head back, and he knows the choice that his own master made to protect him. He just hadn’t thought he would have to make the sacrifice so soon.

***

“Do you ever think about why Sanzo likes to room with you, Hakkai?” Goku asks when they stop at a hotel. He stands between Hakkai and Gojyo, body positioned in such a way that it almost looks like he’s trying to keep the two from drifting together as they often do.

“Because I’m the quietest,” Hakkai says pleasantly, his smile empty. 

Goku makes a soft, strangled noise that makes Sanzo’s blood pressure spike. “Yeah, but what if there’s like... other reasons. You know, ones that Sanzo won’t talk about.” Sanzo allows himself one glimpse at Goku’s face and he’s clearly trying to infer something with a look. 

Gojyo snorts, ashing his cigarette on the ground. The receptionist is too smitten to even notice.

“I’m also the cleanest.” 

“No, like--”

Sanzo grips the counter because he can begin to see where this is going. He can feel the spasm in his lungs. “Stop trying to think, monkey. You’ll hurt yourself.” He starts coughing before he can make it to the stairs, to get to the second floor where their rooms will be.

Goku appears at his side, slinging one of Sanzo’s arms over his shoulder as if he’s suddenly an invalid. “I’m trying to help, Sanzo,” he says. 

Sanzo coughs hard enough that it feels like a piece of his lungs comes up with the flower. He spits it into a handkerchief. Goku touching him makes the coughing worse, until it’s largely Goku carrying him up the stairs with Sanzo barely making an attempt to move. 

“Sanzo, you should tell Hakkai,” Goku says, and there is so much open sadness in his face, yellow eyes almost like liquid sunlight in their brightness.

He puts one hand on the top of Goku’s unruly hair, and his voice is rough, cracking, when he says, “I’m not in love with Hakkai.” The door to his room is open, and he forces himself to make it to the bed unassisted out of pride.

Sanzo hears Goku say something from the door, but he’s too exhausted, too hurt. He’s not sure Hakkai will be able to heal what he’s done now. His eyes close and he wills himself to sleep.

***

They have to stop more, because Sanzo is too sick to sleep out in the open. If he were less stubborn, he’s sure that he’d be dead. Some days, he feels the roots and stems in his lungs as he breathes. His fighting is getting sloppier, forcing him to rely heavily on his gun or on the sutra. He can’t do hand-to-hand, and Goku and Hakkai keep jumping in to help him of a youkai gets too close.

Normally, stopping more would make Goku happy, but he seems smaller, curled in on himself. He sits next to Gojyo at tables, insisting that Hakkai and Sanzo sit together while they eat silently. Sanzo just picks at his food. He’s never eaten much, but now the taste of pollen is constant, the heaviness in his lungs painful. 

He eats enough to keep the concerned look off Goku’s face, to keep Hakkai from fussing, and no more. It hardly matters now.

Sanzo sleeps in a room with Hakkai, half propped up so he can breath more easily. Neither of them talk about how he’s going to fail their mission. 

It’s Gojyo who says it, instead. He sends Goku ahead with Hakkai to do the shopping and then sits backwards on a chair in the shared room. “So. When are you going to tell the monkey that he’s killing you?”

Sanzo frowns at his paper but says nothing. He knows that Gojyo is just trying to get a rise from him. That Goku would feel terrible to know that he’s incidentally the reason Sanzo is choking by millimeters is true, but there’s no reason to comment on it. 

Particularly because his immediate thought is to tell Gojyo that Hakkai’s cough is seems to be getting worse. 

“I know you and Hakkai think you have this covered, but come on. The kid thinks you’re in love with Hakkai now, Sanzo. He’s trying to help.”

Sanzo shakes his head. “I told him I don’t. I can’t make him believe me.” He pauses for a moment. “Hakkai told you then.”

“Nah,” Gojyo mutters. He lights a cigarette absently, not bothering to offer Sanzo a light. “But it doesn’t take a genius to notice that you have blood on your lips and there’s suddenly a fuckton of yellow flowers.” Gojyo sighs, taking a long drag. “And now we’re stopping a ton, and Hakkai is doing that weird squirrelly thing when he has a secret.”

Sanzo closes his eyes. “I can’t make Goku believe something.”

“You could just tell him the truth.”

He wants to laugh, because Hakkai is dying slower than he is, over the same stupid bullshit. It’s easy to want to fix other people’s problems. 

“Mind your own shit,” he says after a long silence.

***

It’s hard to talk to Goku now, when even being close makes his lung seize. He knows he doesn’t have much time left; he knows Goku is worried. For his part, Goku tries to have Gojyo switch rooms, in case it’s Gojyo that’s Sanzo’s unknown love.

If Sanzo were a good man, he’d just let it end. He knows that he’s hanging on by his fingernails, that his own stubbornness is keeping him moving and fighting. He should release the others to try to carry on without him, even if he knows they couldn’t handle it without him. Even if they turned around to go back for Sharak, he’d be dead before they arrived. 

So instead he lives through the pain of being with Goku, of letting Goku hover and fuss. This weak, he can let himself enjoy the small pleasure of Goku touching his forehead after he’s nearly vomited entire dandelion plants. Goku wipes his mouth, touches his hair, and tries to name other people that could be the one Sanzo loves. 

He’s too tired to reply at all. Goku can name a hundred people, alive and dead, and he still won’t know.

***

Hakkai finally succumbs after a hard fight, when they needed him on the field and he had to hold his side and shoot from a distance. Goku has to stay close to protect him. It leaves Gojyo and Hakkai exposed, gives the youkai an edge that they’re not used to allowing.

Sanzo doesn’t see how they hit Hakkai, if he was distracted and they got lucky or if they were actually that good. Or maybe the disease is finally catching up on him. The hit falls on his ribs, knock him down, and the fight seems to stop when Goku and Gojyo realize that he’s down, curled up tight to protect his chest and neck.

They get the youkai off Hakkai; they finish the fight while Sanzo stands helpless and ineffectual. Goku is near hysterical, because Hakkai doesn’t move for a long minute. Gojyo’s voice is strained and careful as he calls Hakkai’s name again and again.

And then Hakkai coughs, long and ragged. Blood falls from his mouth, and there are flowers mixed in. They seem nearly the same color, so red on the dry sand. 

Goku makes a low moaning sound when he sees it. Gojyo goes pale. 

No one talks on the way to the next hotel.

***

They don’t move from the hotel for days. Now Hakkai is the one who the others fuss over, Gojyo’s face pale and drawn while Goku made sure Hakkai always had fresh tea and changed trashcans without hesitation.

They all stay in the same room, Goku and Gojyo on futons on the floor while Hakkai and Sanzo have the proper beds. He knows it’s to make things easier on Goku and Gojyo, because while Sanzo is stable at the moment, no one wants him alone.

For two days, they’re never alone. Goku brings food up to Gojyo, who barely eats it, preferring instead to sit at the windowsill and smoke. Hakkai picks at his meal, and Sanzo makes an effort if only to see Goku look less worried for a moment. He can see how the quiet, how Hakkai and Sanzo just coughing into buckets and Gojyo smoking is wearing on him, how it’s beginning to break him down. 

On the second day, when Gojyo hasn’t bathed and his patchy black stubble has become too hard to ignore, Sanzo reaches out for Goku, gripping him tight around the wrist. He feels the flowers rise and forces himself to swallow them down. “Take Gojyo to the bath. He stinks. You guys need some time away. We’ll be okay.”

Hakkai is turned away from all of them, facing the wall. Hakuryuu is on the headboard, looming like a sentinel. He says nothing, shoulders rounding. 

Gojyo snorts. “You don’t exactly smell like roses, monk.” He flicks his lighter because he ran out of cigarettes hours ago, and Sanzo wouldn’t hand over the gold card for more. He won’t even leave to play cards, to earn enough cash for smokes. 

Sanzo pulls it out now, presses it into Goku’s hand. The Aspects will shit themselves when they see the bill, but he probably won’t be around to see their reaction. It hardly matters. “Go, get cleaned up and eat. Get some supplies for the road.”

Goku hesitates. “We’re leaving tomorrow?” His eyes cut to Hakkai’s bed.

“We’ll need stuff when we go,” he says, and he has to turn his head to cough, to spit in the disgusting bucket. He shudders and won’t meet Goku’s eyes again. “Just to make sure we’re ready when Hakkai pulls it together.”

“Because we haven’t been stuck because you’re too fucking stubborn? At least we all know where he is. You could just talk to him, but you’d rather die,” Gojyo snaps as he takes the card. “Fucking monk.”

Sanzo glares at Gojyo; he does not look at Goku. He scowls until they leave, until they’ve closed the door behind them. He locks the door behind them, because he doesn’t want them coming in. Hakkai kept his secret; as stupid as it is, Sanzo will attempt to do the same.

“He thinks I’m in love with Yaone-san,” Hakkai murmurs from the bed, still on his side. The youkai managed to kick the shit out of him, and that combined with the Hanahaki has left him weaker than he should be. He’s stretched out on the bed, not bothering to prop himself up anymore. “He’s trying to figure out how to get in contact with Dokugakuji, to see if he’ll bring her here.”

“She’s not in love with you,” Sanzo says. He takes a sip of cold and abandoned tea to wash the taste of blood from his mouth. “Surely he knows that.”

“He wants to try, I suppose.” Hakkai finally sits up, his hair flattened to one side and blood at the corner of his lips. “Goku will look for ‘him,’ you know.”

“You should tell him,” Sanzo says bluntly. “It’s too late for me, but you could still pull through.”

Hakkai laughs, and there is nothing pleasant in his face. “Slightly hypocritical. I’ve been sick longer, and now with my injuries... I suppose it was too hopeful to assume we’d all live to the end. I just supposed that I would die at the end rather in the journey.”

Sanzo’s stomach burns hot, because he’s hanging on because he won’t die for something so stupid. “So you’re giving up?”

“I am not giving up. If my lungs heal, I’ll drive us to the next town and the one after that, for as long as I’m able.” Hakkai reaches up to scratch under Hakuryuu’s chin. “You have to know that Goku loves you, Sanzo. He would move entire mountains if he thought it would make you better.”

Sanzo drinks more tea and says nothing. Goku deserves more than him. He shouldn’t try to hold Goku that tightly, not when he’s sure his own love for Goku is different than whatever Goku feels. 

They’re both asleep by the time the others return; nothing else is said.

***

Hakkai looks near to falling over when he gets back behind the wheel, but true to his word, he keeps driving them West. They switch seats more now, sometimes Hakkai folding into the back with Goku while Gojyo drives.

Sanzo doesn’t know why Hakkai misses the way Gojyo doesn’t smile anymore, how his eyes are always sharp, always focused on Hakkai. He winces each time Hakkai coughs. 

Sometimes, while he’s watching them, Sanzo catches Goku looking at him. He allows himself the cowardice of looking away.

***

They hardly ever stop in the middle of nowhere anymore, but sometimes it’s impossible not to. It’s impossible not to set up tents and for a large fire to be built. Normally it’s Hakkai who starts the fire after Gojyo and Goku hunt down enough kindling, and then they’re the ones who put up the tents under Hakkai’s supervision.

Now they do it all. Sanzo debates a cigarette and looks at Hakkai, at the tremors in his pale hands as he tries to start dinner. After so long of being asymptomatic, he seems worse than even Sanzo, and Sanzo is picking dandelion petals from his teeth. 

He looks at the grey cast of Gojyo’s face and the way Goku’s mouth seems to tremble. He resists the urge to go to Goku and rest his hand on the top of the monkey’s head, to try to imply that everything is going to be all right. 

“Tch, this is stupid,” he mutters, sticking the cigarette behind his ear. He could go to Goku, tell him everything, but instead he kicks at Gojyo’s leg where he’s fucking around with one of the tents. “Come help me get water.”

Hakkai sits up straight, and Sanzo can feel his disapproval. He doesn’t care. They’re all too fucking stubborn; if this is how he has to start the process of fixing this shit, this is how he’ll start. 

First someone else’s issues, then maybe his own. 

The moment they’re out of Hakkai and Goku’s earshot, Gojyo wastes no time lighting a cigarette, water skins thrown over his shoulder. “You ready to tell the kid? You know he’d fall over himself if you told him.”

Sanzo says nothing and keeps walking, towards the river. He can’t walk as fast as he’d like, he has to pause to cough and hold his weight up against spindly trees. There is blood on the hem of his robes, and he ignores the way his stomach roils in disgust. 

“You have to tell him,” Gojyo says again, softer this time. “Sanzo, man. You know--”

“ _You_ have to tell him,” Sanzo mutters, and he pulls out his cigarette again, lighting it. It’s a terrible idea to smoke at all, but his head aches and his limbs feel like lead. “Before you lose the opportunity.”

Gojyo’s face flickers through a few different expressions before it settles on annoyance. “You’re the one dying, yeah? Maybe worry about yourself and let me handle my own shit.”

Sanzo takes two drags, and he’s so glad that Gojyo says nothing about the hacking cough that comes from it. The blood he spits out seems darker, thicker, and maybe he is finally dying. He’ll worry about that later. 

“Maybe that’s why I’m telling you, asshole,” he says, when the coughing fit has passed. He sits against a tree, tipping his head back. “Before you end up like us, and if he dies, what are you going to do?”

Gojyo’s face takes that odd greyish tone again. He flicks the butt of his cigarette away and won’t meet Sanzo’s eyes. “Lazy ass monk. Stay here. I’ll get the water.”

Sanzo takes another drag, relishing the way his throat burns and his lungs rebel. If he can only smoke for a few more days, he wants to enjoy it.

***

When they get back to camp, Hakkai has some sort of soup started, something that smells delicious but which Sanzo feels too weak and tired to eat. Walking and smoking have drained him a way that was clearly stupid and useless, judging by the way that Hakkai and Gojyo won’t look at each other at all.

He looks at the tents. “I’m going to bed,” he says, even if no one but Goku notices. 

“Sanzo,” the monkey murmurs, and his gold eyes are trouble. “You should probably eat.”

He frowns, because the idea of eating at all makes his stomach roil. “Eat my share, idiot.”

The bed roll does almost nothing to disguise that he’s lying on the cold ground and the grass is slightly damp. He turns onto his side as Hakkai has told him time and again, to keep his airway clear. The evening is humid, his hair sticking to the back of his neck as he coughs. 

Sleep comes after he hears Hakkai call for dinner, when he hears Goku force cheer. He drifts off, aware of the heaviness in his lungs and the way his ribs ache. He’s too warm in his robes, but moving feels like too much work to pull them off.

He coughs and sweats, and he tries to shut his brain off, not to notice that they all seem so quiet. They slurp soup from spoons and shift, Hakuryuu’s wings audible in the silence.

Sanzo doesn’t sleep deep enough to dream, but he’s aware when Goku climbs into the tent with him. He knows it’s Goku from the way he breathes, the way he hovers. “Sanzo?” he whispers, and Sanzo shifts just enough to acknowledge his presence. It makes him cough again. 

Goku’s fingers brush over his forehead. It makes the coughing worse, the flowers so large that he feels like he’s choking even on his side. “You’re too hot.” The tent opens again, letting in cool night air. 

Sanzo half-rolls off the bedroll to cough harder, to spit up so he won’t have to sleep in the filth. He will not die in this shitty tent so close to the goal. He won’t die in front of Goku. He refuses. 

He’s aware that his body is eventually going to override his will, but it won’t be tonight. 

Goku comes back with a cool cloth, and Sanzo wants to sit up. He hates having anyone fuss; it’s worse when it’s Goku, though, because his eyes go huge and sad. The pain in his lungs makes him feel like he’s been stabbed, like he’s drowning as Goku moves his upper body into his lap.

He wants to push Goku away, except he’s weak, and Goku’s strong hands hold him close. The cool cloth feels amazing, but it’s harder and harder to breath. “Goku,” he rasps because he’s no longer aware of where the bedrolls are. The tent is dark, only the faint glimmer of Goku’s diadem visible, the barest reflection of his eyes.

“It’s okay, Sanzo,” Goku whispers. There’s another cloth at his lips, wiping away mess. His hands are so sure. 

Sanzo lets his eyes close again, to have this weakness. In the morning, he’ll hate himself, but if this is one of the rare moments that he leans on Goku’s strength, he can savor it. His breathing doesn’t even out; he knows he’s choking. 

“I can’t let you die,” Goku whispers to him. Sanzo wants to remind him that it’s not up to either of them. Eventually Sanzo is going to die. It’s just a fact of life. 

The cloth brushes over his mouth, and he can feel Goku pick flower petals away from his mouth. His fingertips are rough against Sanzo’s lips but sure, and Sanzo is aware of how hot his skin feels. He doesn’t think it’s fever. 

He shivers, and he’s aware of a blanket being pulled up over his shoulders. “Sanzo, are you awake?”

He is, but words seem too hard, too much. If he’s opens his mouth, he might cough again. 

Goku’s fingers brush through his bangs, and the tent feels so small, Goku’s breathing loud. “I wish you were in love with me,” he whispers, and Sanzo forgets to breathe. His entire body feels like it’s burning now. 

Everything has narrowed to Goku’s fingers in his hair, brushing against Sanzo’s skin in between presses of the wet cloth. Goku licks his lips, and they’re drying enough that Sanzo can hear it, can hear every shift of Goku on the floor. His body is tense against Sanzo’s back. 

“I could love you back,” he whispers, and Sanzo feels like he’s drowning, like his entire body has frozen. Goku’s thumb brushes very carefully against his lip. “I love you, Sanzo.”

He wants to protest, because Goku doesn’t know what he saying, that it’s not the same thing. But there is a moment before Goku bends and presses the softest kiss against the side of Sanzo’s mouth. 

Sanzo has to move, has to shift just enough to catch Goku’s mouth with his. It’s chaste and gentle, because his entire body hurts, feels like it’s seizing up. Goku’s hand cards through Sanzo’s hair and the kiss ends, Goku’s mouth shifts to Sanzo’s forehead. 

“Go to sleep,” he whispers, and Sanzo feels for a moment like he’s a child. They don’t say anything else. Sanzo consciousness fades, knowing that he’s in Goku’s lap and Goku’s hands are petting his hair.

***

He wakes alone in the tent, a cloth still on his forehead, and he lights a cigarette before he crawls out of the tent. The fire is out, Hakkai and Gojyo’s tent already rolled up and packed into Hakuryuu.

“You could have woken me up,” he tells Hakkai, who hands him a small portion of breakfast, just a bit of rice and some tea. Normally he would go without, but he suddenly finds that he’s famished. He sits by the remnants of the fire and begins to eat. 

Hakkai’s smile is wan and tired, his good eye almost glazed from exhaustion. “You need sleep.”

“So do you,” he says, because he still sees the flecks of blood about Hakkai’s lips, on the cuff of his shirt. 

Hakkai says nothing and goes to pack up the other tent, and Sanzo doesn’t press. He eats and finishes the luke-warm tea and then smokes again, wishing suddenly for a newspaper. 

It’s only when they are moving again, Goku and Gojyo snoring in the backseat, that he realizes that he hasn’t been coughing all morning, that while he still feels the heaviness, it’s nowhere near as bad.

He turns around to look at Goku, but Goku just snores, head against Gojyo’s shoulder. 

Hakkai spares a glance at him, but Sanzo says nothing, taking out the map again as if it will do them any good.

***

They reach another town that night, a small village surrounded by meadows with wildflowers. If it wasn’t another three days until the next stopping point, Sanzo would make them keep going. This many flowers makes him nervous.

He hasn’t tasted pollen all day, and though he’s had a few coughing fits, there’s no blood now. 

Sanzo decides that Hanahaki is bullshit, that it doesn’t make a bit of goddamned sense. That the entire world makes very little sense anymore doesn’t really count, because he’s used to the world trying to kill him. His lungs filling with flowers that magically disappear in one night is new and aggravating. 

But when he pays for the rooms, he hands Hakkai one key and takes the other for himself. “You two figure your shit out,” he grumbles. 

Hakkai says nothing, shows nothing in his face, and Sanzo doesn’t meet Goku’s eyes as the monkey takes their bags up to the room. 

He does notice that Goku’s appetite returns at dinner, finishing both of his courses and the food that the rest of them don’t finish.

***

Sanzo is actually surprised that it takes as long for Goku to ask as he does. He expects it before dinner, when Sanzo steps out of the jeep and into the hotel. He expects it after they drop their bags, but Goku just smiles and then goes downstairs. He’s all smiles during dinner and after dinner, they take turns using the baths.

It’s only when the candles are low and Sanzo is nearly asleep that Goku’s voice calls out in the darkness. “You aren’t coughing as much.” It’s barely a whisper, something that could be lost in the rustle of sheets.

Sanzo debates ignoring him, debates pretending that he is asleep, but technically--and literally--he’s only alive and staying alive because Goku was braver than him. For all his talk of not backing down, Goku is the one who reached out and held on while Sanzo fell into a hell of his own making. 

So instead he sits up, reaching over to turn the gas lamp up. Goku is in his own bed, not under the covers but shirtless, his muscles etched in shadow. Sanzo feels heat in his face as he looks away and fumbles for his cigarettes. “No, not as much.”

Goku makes an agreeable noise, and Sanzo watches him from the corner of his eye, the way he rubs his hands over the rough denim. “Does--Do you remember kissing me?”

Sanzo has to look away, because he can feel heat across his face and along the back of his neck. His ears are probably even burning. Why did he turn the lamp up? “Don’t be stupid.”

“So... you’re better,” Goku whispers softly, as if he doesn’t quite believe it. His bed shifts, and Sanzo wills himself not to look over, not to watch the realization paint itself across Goku’s features. 

His entire body feels like it’s on fire, as if he’s flushing down his chest. 

Except Goku doesn’t stay on his bed. Goku crosses the room in a leap, so Sanzo’s own bed creaks and groans with the jump. He pulls out his fan to smack Goku, but then Goku’s rough fingers are around his wrist, tight enough that it makes Sanzo’s heart stutter in his chest. He’d taken his gloves off when he crawled into bed, and now he can feel everything, even how hot Goku’s touch is.

“So _I_ made you better,” Goku says. He leans close enough that Sanzo knows what soap he used in the baths, the cottonwood and jasmine.

“Shut up,” Sanzo mumbles, because he can see what Goku is trying to tease out of him. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Except it does, and the way Goku grins at him lets him know that Goku _knows_. He knows and he wants Sanzo to say it.

Sanzo kisses him instead, grabs him by the shoulder and slants their mouths together harder than he means to. It doesn’t matter because Goku makes this soft, desperate noise, and he’s suddenly crawling onto Sanzo like Sanzo isn’t holding a lit cigarette in the other hand. Goku’s fingers curl in his hair and pull lightly, and the heat spikes back through Sanzo. 

Then Goku bites his lip, and Sanzo nearly drops the Marlboro onto the bedding. 

He shoves Goku back and puts his cigarette in the ash tray. “What are we doing, Goku?” he asks, voice gruff. He tries to act like he doesn’t want to touch Goku more. He’ll sit on his hands if he has to.

“You love me,” Goku whispers, and now he’s crawling into Sanzo’s lap. “And you know I love you.” He kisses Sanzo again, soft and sweet, and then he brushes their noses together. 

Sanzo swallows, because he’s never let anyone touch him like this. If he’s honest, he’s never wanted anyone to touch him like this, Goku’s legs around his hips and their cocks lined up so that Sanzo can feel that Goku is half-hard. Everyone who wanted to touch him like this went on and on about how pretty Sanzo was, but Goku is grinning at him with too many teeth, like he sees exactly what Sanzo is. 

“I never said I loved you,” he says, but it’s a weak protest.

Goku gives him another bruising, biting kiss, his fingers digging into Sanzo’s shoulders. “You didn’t have to. You’re getting better. I made you better.” One finger trails along the knobs of Sanzo’s spine, over the fabric of his black shirt. “And I want to kiss you. We don’t have to do more than kiss, if you don’t like it.”

Sanzo lets his hands fall onto Goku’s hips, thinking about how new this is. He won’t say to himself that he’s in love with Goku, even if it nearly killed him. He won’t say that his hands shake because of nerves, and it’s those nerves that slide along Goku’s side, where his skin is so hot that Sanzo thinks he should burn through the bedding and down to the floor. 

“Please,” Goku whispers, and Sanzo swallows hard. His fingers trace the shape of Goku’s abs, up to his tan nipples.He brushes his fingers over them, and Goku writhes in Sanzo’s lap, rolling his hips. Sanzo bites his lip viciously against a moan. 

“If we do this, we do it quiet,” he whispers against Goku’s jaw. The walls are thin; he doesn’t want to face a morning of teasing from Gojyo. He wants this to be new and theirs, not to have Gojyo leering and cracking jokes. 

(Unless Hakkai tells him. If Sanzo believed in praying, he’d ask the gods to let Hakkai tell him tonight.)

Goku nods quickly and then they’re kissing again, Goku’s hips rolling over and over. Sanzo pushes Goku from his lap, so that he can press him down into the sheets. They fumble, but Sanzo refuses to feel like a fumbling virgin in front of the _monkey_ , even when he can’t seem to get Goku’s belt undone and Goku is too busy trying to push up Sanzo’s top to notice.

It’s only when they almost tumble off the bed that Goku shoves him back roughly, reminds Sanzo that no matter how small he is, he’s strong and capable. It makes Sanzo feel like he’s been punched, winded by the way his own arousal spikes. 

“Careful,” Goku whispers with a smile, totally unaware, and Sanzo can’t let that stand. 

He presses Goku back against the bed, holding his wrists in one of Sanzo’s hands because it will keep him still. They both know that if Goku wanted free, Sanzo’s hold would be nothing, but from the way Goku whimpers, that won’t be a problem. 

“Stay, monkey,” he whispers against Goku’s mouth before he undoes Goku’s jeans with one hand, shoving past his briefs to wrap a hand around Goku’s cock. He’s hard in Sanzo’s fingers, skin so much softer here. There’s wet at the tip, and Sanzo knows how to do this with himself, how to make himself get off fast and quiet, but he tries to be slow with Goku, to make this last. His mouth and teeth move against Goku’s jaw and neck, marking lightly until he finds Goku’s collar bone. He doesn’t have to be careful here; Goku’s t-shirt will cover the mark in the morning. 

He sucks hard, teeth worrying the skin a little, and Goku yanks a hand free to cover his own mouth. He bucks into Sanzo’s hand, his whimper so loud that it makes Sanzo’s own cock twitch, still trapped in his jeans. 

“Quiet,” he reminds Goku, marking lower on his chest, fingers sliding over Goku’s heated flush and using one shoulder to keep Goku down against the bed. 

Goku is biting at his own hand, eyes rolling back into his head. His moan is so loud that there is no way to muffle it. Sanzo has to look away, pressing the heel of his free hand to his own trapped arousal, and concentrate on making Goku feel good, on making Goku’s face go slack with need. 

Between one moment and the next, he comes messy across Sanzo’s fingers and hand, a little landing against Sanzo’s jeans. Normally he’d swear, yell at Goku for messing his clean pants, but he can’t with Goku flushed and panting beneath him. 

Sanzo goes to wipe his hand on the bedding--they have two beds after all, and it would hardly be the first time they shared--but Goku’s hand reaches out, taking Sanzo’s messy hand to his mouth. “Goku,” he murmurs, because Goku doesn’t have to--Sanzo wouldn’t expect that from him ever, but especially not the first time they’ve ever touched each other like this. 

But Goku just looks up at him with those sex-blown eyes and licks Sanzo’s fingers clean, tasting himself without hesitation. Now it’s Sanzo’s turn to make a noise that is too loud, too needy, to be ignored. Someone pounds on the wall and shouts something. It doesn’t sound like Gojyo.

Even if it is Gojyo, Sanzo doesn’t care. 

Goku licks Sanzo’s hand clean before he’s shucking his jeans and underwear off, crawling up onto Sanzo now. “You’re overdressed,” he says softly, pulling so roughly at Sanzo’s shirt that Sanzo has to either help Goku get him out of it or risk the shirt being ripped, does the same with his pants until they’re both as naked as they can be in bed. 

Sanzo can feel Goku watching him, eyes tracing all the little nicks and scars that come from a life like his, from travelling once he was named Sanzo and from their journey, the wounds that healed naturally. “Can I say you’re pretty?” he asks softly, and Sanzo’s back stiffens.

“No,” he whispers, because he’s not. He’s not soft and delicate anymore, not like when he was a child. 

Goku nods, tracing an old knife scar from his travels. “Then dangerous,” he whispers, grin full of teeth. “I like it.”

And then Goku is on him, pushing him to the bedding. That his mouth goes to Sanzo’s cock without preamble shouldn’t surprise Sanzo--not after the show--but it does, makes him nearly drop off the bed until Goku sits up coughing. 

“Goku, you don’t...” Sanzo covers his eyes, his whole body on fire. When he thought of sex before, it was always other things, nameless bodies and nothing going wrong. “Just touch me. It’ll be good.”

“No, I want to--” Goku says, and his hand is low on Sanzo’s stomach, just above the line of hair that leads to his cock. “I’ve never done this, but--it could be fun.”

His mouth slides onto Sanzo’s cock, just the head between his lips as circles around the shaft. Sanzo bites his own hand to keep quiet, because his cock twitches and it feels like that pool of heat behind his skin is moments from overflowing. He wouldn’t last long with just Goku’s hand, but now that it’s his tongue moving, even inexpertly, against the underside of Sanzo’s cock, it’s so much.

He tries to hold out, because he’s not a child. He should have pride. He tries to hold out for a dozen reasons, and he can’t. He won’t. Goku’s hand is drifts down to brush over Sanzo’s balls, a sudden sensation that makes this all so much more, so much that his vision starts to blur. 

“Goku, I--” he manages, before he has to shove Goku back with his free hand. He comes hard across Goku’s chest and neck, and Goku blinks up at him, golden eyes blown wide, clearly shocked. 

“Oh, oh wow,” Goku says, and he touches the mess, sliding his fingers through it. “I didn’t mean--”

“Don’t be disgusting,” Sanzo says, rather than listen to Goku apologize, because there is nothing to be sorry for. He ignores the way his dick twitches, interested in the image because it’s stupid. 

He uses the blanket to wipe Goku clean, ignoring the fact that they bathed today and are disgusting, that the entire room now smells like sex. The marks on Goku’s skins are dark shadows on his skin already, and Sanzo touches them, smirking to himself. He doesn’t say that Goku is his; he isn’t ready to voice that kind of idea, might never be able to. Sanzo likes it just the same. 

They’re quiet as they finish cleaning up, Goku opening the window, and get into the other bed. It takes a moment to arrange themselves comfortably in bed, Goku curled on his side so his head pillows on Sanzo’s shoulder. He can feel Goku begin to drift off, the soft sound of his breathing levelling out. 

In the dark, with the lamps out and his nose tucked into Goku’s hair, he can allow himself to whisper, “I love you.”

He tries not to feel irritated by the soft, “I love you, too,” that Goku breathes out.

***

Hakkai and Gojyo are late checking out of the hotel, late enough that Goku manages to weasel thirds from the server and Sanzo had finished half the morning’s paper. He knows he's delaying, enjoying an early morning with Goku’s smiles just for him and no commentary when their fingers brush, but it can't last forever. They still have to push forward.

He finally folds his paper when he hears Gojyo’s voice, the pitch and timbre if not the words. “You bastards kept us,” he snaps, and he stands as if he really does mean to leave. Any other morning, it would be true, after all.

Today, though, it is about being able to see their faces before he can decide if he needs to break out the fan or if the situation is dire enough for the gun. 

Hakkai doesn’t seem better at first glance, still too pale for Sanzo’s taste, but Gojyo’s hand is at his elbow to help him as they come to the table. He pulls out the chair for Hakkai and helps him sit, and neither of them will meet Sanzo’s eyes. He can feel his eye twitching, the anger that nothing’s changed. 

Then he notices just the faintest flush to Gojyo’s face as he sits beside Hakkai, when Hakkai reaches over and takes his hand. Goku beams, and Sanzo forces a frown. They should have worked this out long before he and Goku did. He shouldn’t have had to push them, and now they’re burning daylight.

“We don’t have time to eat. You’re late,” Sanzo snaps out of habit. 

Hakkai looks up then, and his smile is as bland as ever. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to concentrate on the road. I feel as if I’ve borrowed Goku’s stomach.”

Sanzo frowns, watching Goku wave down their server again, and even though he knows how he felt the morning after Goku saved him, he makes a show of hesitating before he sits again. The idiots can’t think he’s gone soft, no matter how much it pleases him to knock his foot against Goku’s beneath the table. 

“You need more sleep,” Gojyo says, and the softness of his face is sickening. 

Hakkai tangles their fingers, and Sanzo pulls his paper out again so he doesn’t have to see their display. He’s sure that he’ll be bombarded with details he doesn’t need later. For now, he expects them to eat fast. They have time to make up.

***

The next morning, they fight youkai in one of the sprawling and endless meadows that surround the small town, spreading blood and gore over the wildflowers. Sanzo tries not to look at the mess and think, “Good. You deserve it.” There are dandelions under the bodies and he can remember vividly how they taste.

No matter what those flowers got him, he knows that he’ll never be able to see them as harmless again. They’re weeds and no amount of nutritional or medicinal value merits them being allowed to remain.

He shoots one, next to a body, and the others look at him, startled. 

“He twitched,” he says, not bothering to comment that, technically, he missed the corpse.

“Are we stopped for lunch?” Goku asks, even if they’ve only been on the road for a little under half a day. 

Hakkai looks at Gojyo, both of them trying to play it coy, and Sanzo grabs his newspaper, flipping it open. “We can’t keep stopping,” he declares, as he finds a large flat stone to sit on. 

“So nice of you to indulge us, Sanzo-sama,” Gojyo snipes, but there’s no heat to it as he helps Hakkai get supplies together to make a quick lunch. Hakuryuu transforms and flies off, clearly pleased for the break. 

Sanzo reads and pointedly ignores what the two idiots are doing, which seems to involve far more soft laughter and murmurs than actual cooking. He’ll give them another day or so before he begins to complain and yell. 

Goku sits beside him, and their hips touch. Sanzo keeps his eyes on the paper, because the monkey understands that they don’t need big moments and public kisses. Him reaching over to brush fingers against Goku’s knee should be enough. 

“Hey, Sanzo,” Goku says, and then there’s a dead dandelion in front of him, the petals turned to white fluff and seeds. “Do you want to make a wish?”

“Are you fucking serious?” he says, feeling his eye twitch. He sets his paper aside, hand sliding into his robes. 

“Come on,” Goku says, and his smile is wide, infectious. “For me.”

Sanzo blows the fluff away, carefully not making anything close to a wish, before he smacks the monkey on the head. “Idiot,” he says, even though there’s no heat to it. 

Goku grins and slides from the rock. “You love me.”

He says nothing, watching the dandelion fluff dance on the wind for a moment before he goes back to his paper. 

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on [tumblr](http://locketofyourhair.tumblr.com). I am hoping to someday go back and write what happened between Gojyo and Hakkai, perhaps when work stops stealing all my freetime.
> 
> A very huge thank you to the mods of Saiyuki Bang for their work in organizing this bang.


End file.
